Traders on London’s Portobello and Golborne Road markets linked up with New Covent Garden Market to celebrate the English apple season last week, to boost consumer awareness and sell more apples.
The three-day event, on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, saw free tastings, recipes and English apples on promotion, kicking off on National Apple Day.
Traders including Cheryl and James Devlin had four varieties of English apples on display wrapped in a St George’s flag, while Josie Corney had four varieties of English apples, as well as an English apple-flavoured granola snack and toffee apples.
Portobello Road bakery Gail’s joined the celebration by promoting its apple sourdough bread.
The tasting team, which had its own stall, directed more than 100 people to Portobello traders throughout the event.
The event will be the first of a series of produce-related events held by Portobello Market in partnership with NCGM, with the next set to be a celebration of root vegetables in January.
Ruth Holbrook, of the Local Food project: London & South East, told freshinfo: “On the one hand, we wanted to have a general promotion of English apples, especially if some of the stallholders buy from NCGM. On the other, we want consumers to buy more apples so traders will have to put in more orders and that will feed back to the traders at NCGM.
“We have found the response from Portobello Market customers to be overwhelmingly positive, with people saying the apples remind them of their childhood and are so much more tasty than imported ones.
“In particular, Egremont Russet was a big hit - which being a fairly unsightly apple, benefited the more from being sliced up for the tasting. Their flavour and sweetness were unsurpassed.”
